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The Hyacinth Girl: T. S. Eliot's Hidden Muse
by Lyndall GordonAmong the greatest of poets, T. S. Eliot protected his privacy while publicly associated with three women: two wives and a church-going companion. This presentation concealed a life-long love for an American: Emily Hale, a drama teacher to whom he wrote (and later suppressed) over a thousand letters. Hale was the source of "memory and desire" in The Waste Land; she is the Hyacinth Girl.Drawing on the dramatic new material of the only recently unsealed 1,131 letters Eliot wrote to Hale, leading biographer Lyndall Gordon reveals a hidden Eliot. Emily Hale now becomes the first and consistently important woman of life -- and his art. Gordon also offers new insight into the other spirited women who shaped him: Vivienne, the flamboyant wife with whom he shared a private wasteland; Mary Trevelyan, his companion in prayer; and Valerie Fletcher, the young disciple to whom he proposed when his relationship with Emily foundered. Eliot kept his women apart as each ignited his transformations as poet, expatriate, convert, and, finally, in his latter years, a man `made for love.'Emily Hale was at the centre of a love drama he conceived and the inspiration for the lines he wrote to last beyond their time. To read Eliot's twice-weekly letters to Emily during the thirties and forties is to enter the heart of the poet's art.
House of Glass
by Susan FletcherI had a curious sense of being watched.June 1914 and a young woman - Clara Waterfield - is summoned to a large stone house in Gloucestershire. Her task: to fill a greenhouse with exotic plants from Kew Gardens, to create a private paradise for the owner of Shadowbrook. Yet, on arrival, Clara hears rumours: something is wrong with this quiet, wisteria-covered house. Its gardens are filled with foxgloves, hydrangea and roses; it has lily-ponds, a croquet lawn - and the marvellous new glasshouse awaits her. But the house itself feels unloved. Its rooms are shuttered, or empty. The owner is mostly absent; the housekeeper and maids seem afraid. And soon, Clara understands their fear: for something - or someone - is walking through the house at night. In the height of summer, she finds herself drawn deeper into Shadowbrook's dark interior - and into the secrets that violently haunt this house. Nothing - not even the men who claim they wish to help her - is quite what it seems.Reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier, this is a wonderful, atmospheric Gothic page-turner.A deeply absorbing, unputdownable ghost story that's also a love story; for readers who love Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger; Frances Hodges Burnett's The Secret Garden; Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace; Jane Harris's The Observations.
Corregidora (Virago Modern Classics #785)
by Gayl Jones'No novel about any black woman could ever be the same after this' TONI MORRISON'Corregidora is the most brutally honest and painful revelation of what has occurred, and is occurring, in the souls of Black men and women' JAMES BALDWINUpon publication in 1975, Corregidora was hailed as a masterpiece, winning acclaim from writers including James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and John Updike. Exploring themes such as race, sexuality and the long repercussions of slavery, this powerful novel paved the way for Beloved and The Colour Purple. Now, this lost classic is published for a new generation of readers.Blues singer Ursa is consumed by her hatred of Corregidora, the nineteenth-century slave master who fathered both her mother and grandmother. Charged with 'making generations' to bear witness to the abuse embodied in the family name, Ursa Corregidora finds herself unable to keep alive this legacy when she is made sterile in a violent fight with her husband. Haunted by the ghosts of a Brazilian plantation, pained by a present of lovelessness and despair, Ursa slowly and firmly strikes her own terms with womanhood.AS HEARD ON THE BACKLISTED PODCAST'A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers' TAYARI JONES, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGEAlso new to the VMC list: Eva's Man and The Healing by Gayl Jones.'An American writer with a powerful sense of vital inheritance, of history in the blood' JOHN UPDIKE'Gayl Jones's first novel, Corregidora (1975), was both shocking and ground-breaking in its probing of the psychological legacy of slavery and sexual ownership through the life of a Kentucky blues singer ... it predated Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Toni Morrison's Beloved, revealing an unfinished emancipation and the power of historical memory to shape lives. It also marked a shift in African-American literature that made women, and relationships between black people, central' MAYA JAGGI, Guardian'Corregidora's survey of trauma and overcoming has become even better and more relevant with the passage of time. It remains an indispensable point of entry into the tradition of African American writing that Gayl Jones reshaped and enriched' PAUL GILROY
Eva's Man (Virago Modern Classics #786)
by Gayl Jones'A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers' TAYARI JONES, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGEEva Medina Canada sits in her psychiatric ward, silent and unremorseful. She has murdered her lover and they want to know why. Her memories weave back and forth over encounters with the men in her life - the schoolboy who played doctors and nurses with a dirty popsicle stick; her mother's boyfriend; her cousin; her husband; a stranger on the bus. She's been propositioned and abused for as long as she can remember. 'Corregidora was a small, fiercely concentrated story, harsh and perfectly told . . . Original, superbly imagined, nothing about the book was simple or easily digested. Out of the worn themes of miscegenation and diminishment, Gayl Jones excavated the disturbingly buried damage of racism. Eva's Man is a deepened exploration of the woman's inner life; of the pressures, the cruelties, the imposed expectations'Darryl Pinckney, The New Republic'Gayl Jones is one furious, lacerating writer. You don't read her easily, and you can't forget her at all . . . Hyper-real and traumatic as this novel is, it's one that's been waiting to be written since Samuel Richardson gave us the male point of view of Clarissa, that other fallen woman whose only acceptable alternative to ravishment was death. Eva's silence, and her status here as legally insane, are eloquent testimony to the condition of being a woman in this man's world' Kirkus
The Healing (Virago Modern Classics #787)
by Gayl Jones'No novel about any black woman could ever be the same after this' TONI MORRISON'Corregidora is the most brutally honest and painful revelation of what has occurred, and is occurring, in the souls of Black men and women' JAMES BALDWINUpon publication in 1975, Corregidora was hailed as a masterpiece, winning acclaim from writers including James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and John Updike. Exploring themes such as race, sexuality and the long repercussions of slavery, this powerful novel paved the way for Beloved and The Colour Purple. Now, this lost classic is published for a new generation of readers.Blues singer Ursa is consumed by her hatred of Corregidora, the nineteenth-century slave master who fathered both her mother and grandmother. Charged with 'making generations' to bear witness to the abuse embodied in the family name, Ursa Corregidora finds herself unable to keep alive this legacy when she is made sterile in a violent fight with her husband. Haunted by the ghosts of a Brazilian plantation, pained by a present of lovelessness and despair, Ursa slowly and firmly strikes her own terms with womanhood.AS HEARD ON THE BACKLISTED PODCAST'A literary giant, and one of my absolute favourite writers' TAYARI JONES, author of AN AMERICAN MARRIAGEAlso new to the VMC list: Eva's Man and The Healing by Gayl Jones.'An American writer with a powerful sense of vital inheritance, of history in the blood' JOHN UPDIKE'Gayl Jones's first novel, Corregidora (1975), was both shocking and ground-breaking in its probing of the psychological legacy of slavery and sexual ownership through the life of a Kentucky blues singer ... it predated Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Toni Morrison's Beloved, revealing an unfinished emancipation and the power of historical memory to shape lives. It also marked a shift in African-American literature that made women, and relationships between black people, central' MAYA JAGGI, Guardian'Corregidora's survey of trauma and overcoming has become even better and more relevant with the passage of time. It remains an indispensable point of entry into the tradition of African American writing that Gayl Jones reshaped and enriched' PAUL GILROY
Equal: How we fix the gender pay gap
by Carrie Gracie'Gracie tells the story of her struggle and eventual triumph as a way of encouraging us, of changing our society, of giving us all courage . . . Equal is a very important book' Sandi ToksvigEqual pay has been the law for half a century. But women often get paid less than men, even when they're doing equal work.Mostly they don't know because pay is secret. But what if a woman finds out? What should she do?In Equal, award-winning journalist Carrie Gracie covers her own experience of holding her employer - the BBC - to account and investigates why we're still being paid unequally. Equal will open your eyes, fix your resolve and give you the tools to act - and act now.'Equal tells a personal story that changed the public debate' Guardian'Pulls no punches' Sunday Times'Full of sound advice for women' Observer'A gripping personal story told with warmth and wit' Julia Gillard, former Australian Prime MinisterLonglisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award 2019
Between Friends: Letters of Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby
by Elaine Showalter English ShowalterThese fascinating letters between Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby tell the story of an extraordinary friendship. A literary relationship that began when the women met at Somerville College, Oxford, in 1919, it lasted until Winifred's early death at the age of thirty-seven. The letters, written from 1920 to 1935, kept them 'continuously together', and show us the life of two pioneers who wished to make their mark as writers and campaigners. Each encouraged and advised the other. However, there were periods when they were literary rivals. Winifred landed a book deal first; Vera produced an international bestseller with Testament of Youth; and the letters show them negotiating envy and self-doubt. It was at times an uneven relationship: Vera, more than four years older, was married and had two children during this period, while Winifred, a single woman with an adventurous spirit, travelled and made a wide range of friends. As the heroine of her novel South Riding says, 'I was born to be a spinster and by God, I'm going to spin!' Vera decisively influenced Winifred's passion for feminism and peace; 'You made me,' Winifred told her. In turn, Winifred, who took care of Vera's children and placated her husband, gave Vera crucial intellectual and emotional support, fiercely believing in her literary gifts. A portrait of the inter-war years and a dramatic, touching and ultimately tragic story, the letters have the hallmarks of honest female friendship: not without friction and with its own delicate co-dependency, but life-changing for them both.
Between Friends: Letters of Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby
by Elaine Showalter English ShowalterThese fascinating letters between Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby tell the story of an extraordinary friendship. A literary relationship that began when the women met at Somerville College, Oxford, in 1919, it lasted until Winifred's early death at the age of thirty-seven. The letters, written from 1920 to 1935, kept them 'continuously together', and show us the life of two pioneers who wished to make their mark as writers and campaigners. Each encouraged and advised the other. However, there were periods when they were literary rivals. Winifred landed a book deal first; Vera produced an international bestseller with Testament of Youth; and the letters show them negotiating envy and self-doubt. It was at times an uneven relationship: Vera, more than four years older, was married and had two children during this period, while Winifred, a single woman with an adventurous spirit, travelled and made a wide range of friends. As the heroine of her novel South Riding says, 'I was born to be a spinster and by God, I'm going to spin!' Vera decisively influenced Winifred's passion for feminism and peace; 'You made me,' Winifred told her. In turn, Winifred, who took care of Vera's children and placated her husband, gave Vera crucial intellectual and emotional support, fiercely believing in her literary gifts. A portrait of the inter-war years and a dramatic, touching and ultimately tragic story, the letters have the hallmarks of honest female friendship: not without friction and with its own delicate co-dependency, but life-changing for them both.
The Book of Mother
by Violaine HuismanA gorgeous, critically acclaimed debut novel about a young woman coming of age with a dazzling yet damaged mother who lived and loved in extremes - in the bestselling tradition of Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle.A prize-winning tour de force when it came out in France, Violaine Huisman's remarkable debut novel is about a daughter's inextinguishable love for her magnetic, mercurial mother. Beautiful and charismatic, Catherine, aka 'Maman', smokes too much, drives too fast, laughs too hard and loves too extravagantly. During a joyful and chaotic childhood in Paris, her daughter Violaine wouldn't have it any other way.But when Maman is hospitalised after a third divorce and breakdown, everything changes. Even as Violaine and her sister long for their mother's return, once she's back Maman's violent mood swings and flagrant disregard for personal boundaries soon turn their home into an emotional landmine. As the story of Catherine's own traumatic childhood and coming of age unfolds, the pieces come together to form an indelible portrait of a mother as irresistible as she is impossible, as triumphant as she is transgressive.With spectacular ferocity of language, a streak of dark humor and stunning emotional bravery, The Book of Mother is an exquisitely wrought story of a mother's dizzying heights and devastating lows, and a daughter who must hold her memory close in order to let go.
Lullaby Beach: 'A PORTRAIT OF SISTERHOOD ... POWERFUL, WISE, CELEBRATORY' Daily Mail
by Stella Duffy'FAULTLESS STORYTELLING' Observer'A PORTRAIT OF SISTERHOOD ... POWERFUL, WISE, CELEBRATORY' Daily MailA compelling novel about family secrets and the legacy of trauma, set against the changing fortunes of an English seaside town, from award-winning writer Stella Duffy. When Lucy discovers the body of her great aunt Kitty, with a puzzling note and empty pill bottles by her bed, she can't believe that the formidable woman who held her family together is gone - or understand why she has taken her own life. Lucy is determined to decipher Kitty's final message. What she finds will overturn everything she thought she knew about her family. Lullaby Beach takes the reader on a journey through three generations of a complicated, close-knit family whose joys and misfortunes track many of the most pressing conflicts and concerns of post-war Britain, from the promise and hypocrisies of 1950s London to the political divides and risky freedoms of the present day. 'Whether it's down to the sure rhythm of Duffy's faultless storytelling or the faded backdrop of the south coast of England, her latest novel is a comforting tale despite some gritty subject matter ... Wise, generous and atmospheric' OBSERVER'Duffy is a fearless writer ... A portrait of sisterhood in the wider sense - one that's as powerful and gritty as it is wise and celebratory' DAILY MAIL'Lullaby Beach explores familial legacy, generational secrets and the effects of long-lasting trauma with a distinct tenderness' NEW STATESMAN'A writer who never lets you down' ALI SMITH
The Turnout: 'Impossible to put down, creepy and claustrophobic' (Stephen King) - the New York Times bestseller
by Megan Abbott'A twisting, turning story of revenge and redemption' STYLISTIt was the three of them. Always the three of them. Until it wasn't.Dara and Marie were trained as ballet dancers by their glamorous mother, founder of the Durant School of Dance. After their parents died in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters took over running the school together with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student. But when a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker - a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration - an interloper arrives and threatens their delicate balance.The instant New York Times bestseller'Impossible to put down, creepy and claustrophobic. It's WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE in ballet shoes' STEPHEN KING'Compulsively readable' RUTH WARE 'A book you will not be able to forget' MARK BILLINGHAM 'My thriller of the year' JAKE KERRIDGE, DAILY TELEGRAPH, BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'The feeling of menace grows stronger with every page' GUARDIAN 'Slow-burning and feverish, with all the intensity of a classic American film noir' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Charged with foreboding, the novel throbs with gothic tension' IRISH TIMES 'Dark and juicy and tinged with horror' NEW YORK TIMES 'Dark and mesmerising' HARRIET TYCE 'This is Megan Abbott working at the absolute height of her talent' ATTICA LOCKE 'There's no one who captures the atmosphere of a tight-knit hothouse world, in all its feverish beauty and brutality, quite like Megan Abbott' TANA FRENCH
Beware the Woman: The twisty, unputdownable new thriller about family secrets by the New York Times bestselling author
by Megan AbbottFrom New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Megan Abbott, a chilling and compulsive novel about a family holiday that takes a terrifying turn.A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023'Splendidly tense and atmospheric - a contemporary Rebecca' MAIL ON SUNDAY'A novel of almost unbearable tension' IRISH TIMES'Stunningly twisty' ASHLEY AUDRAIN, author of The Push*******************************************************************Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy has everything she ever wanted. When she and her husband, Jed, go to visit his father in his remote cottage, Jacy feels bathed in love by Dr. Ash, if less so by his housekeeper, the enigmatic Mrs. Brandt.Then Jacy has a health scare. Swiftly, all eyes are on Jacy's condition, and whispers about Jed's long-dead mother seem to be intruding upon the present. As the days pass, Jacy feels trapped in the cottage, her body under the looking glass. But are her fears founded or is this -as is suggested to her-a stubborn refusal to take necessary precautions to protect her unborn child? The dense woods surrounding the cottage are full of dangers, but are the greater ones inside?'Abbott ratchets up the menace towards an unexpected ending in a claustrophobic chiller about how men deny women agency' GUARDIAN'Sultry, subversive, shades of Rebecca ... I loved it' HARRIET TYCE, author of It Ends at Midnight'Feverish, razor sharp, and pulsing with dread' RILEY SAGER, author of The House Across the Lake'Spectacular. Her best yet. Kind of Rosemary's Baby meets Rebecca. Nobody, but nobody does creeping dread like she does' SAM BAKER The Turnout by Megan Abbott was a New York Times bestseller in August 2021
Chasm: A Weekend (Virago Modern Classics #791)
by Dorothea TanningA Surrealist novel in the vein of Angela Carter, about love and beauty and dark secrets.Played out like the command of an oracle are the events that stain one night in the improbable setting of this desert tale. Rearing its impudent architecture like insult on a landscape of quiet beauty is Windcote, "its very name a masquerade," where inhabitants and guests find themselves driven by obsessions and confusions they have never faced before. Here doors open and close and open again. They hide, release, reveal, and ruin. In this web of tangled imperatives is the child, Destina, untouched by the fevers and failures around her. Her own world is outside in the mystery-locked canyon where, for the time of this story, she seems to find her own truth
Good Citizens Need Not Fear: 'Bright, funny, satirical and relevant' Margaret Atwood (from Twitter)
by Maria Reva'Bright, funny, satirical and relevant. . . . A new talent to watch!' MARGARET ATWOOD (via Twitter)'Bang-on brilliant' MIRIAM TOEWSThis brilliant and bitingly funny novel-in-stories, set in and around a single crumbling apartment building in Soviet-era Ukraine, heralds the arrival of a major new talent.'A comic triumph' GLOBE AND MAILA cast of unforgettable characters--citizens of the small industrial town of Kirovka--populate Maria Reva's ingeniously entwined tales that span the chaotic years leading up to and immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Weaving the strands of the narrative together is an unforgettable, chameleon-like young woman named Zaya: an orphan turned beauty-pageant crasher who survives the extraordinary circumstances of her childhood through a compelling combination of ferocity, intelligence, stubbornness and wit.Inspired by her own family's history, Reva's Good Citizens Need Not Fear takes us from paranoia to tenderness and back again, exploring what it is to be an individual amid the roiling forces of history.'Luminous' YANN MARTEL'Outstanding' ANTHONY DOERR'Maria Reva's enthralling debut of interlinked short stories achieves the double effect of timelessness and timeliness' KAPKA KASSABOVA, GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY
The Friend: 'A funny, moving examination of love, grief, and the uniqueness of dogs' GRAHAM NORTON
by Sigrid NunezWINNER OF THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'A true delight: I genuinely fear I won't read a better novel this year' FINANCIAL TIMES'Loved this. A funny, moving examination of love, grief, and the uniqueness of dogs' GRAHAM NORTON'Delicious' SUNDAY TIMES 100 BEST SUMMER READSWhen a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unravelling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.'Very, very clever. Mature. Entertaining. Eminently readable and re-readable. Absolutely delightful' IRISH TIMES'I loved it . . . It's one of my favourite books and it moved me' WHOOPI GOLDBERGA New York Times Notable Book of 2018 * A Financial Times 2018 Best Book: Critics Pick * A Buzzfeed Best Book of 2018 * A Bustle Best Fiction Book of 2018 * An NPR Best Book of 2018 * Shortlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award
The Last of Her Kind
by Sigrid NunezThe paths of two women from different walks of life intersect amid counterculture of the 1960s in this haunting and provocative novel from the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend It is Columbia University, 1968. Ann Drayton and Georgette George meet as roommates on the first night. Ann is rich and radical; Georgette is leery and introverted, a child of the very poverty and strife her new friend finds so noble. The two are drawn together by their differences; two years later, after a violent fight, they part ways. When, in 1976, Ann is convicted of killing a New York cop, Georgette comes back to their shared history in search of an explanation. She finds a riddle of a life, shaped by influences more sinister and complex than any of the writ-large sixties movements. She realises, too, how much their early encounter has determined her own path and why, after all this time, as she tells us, 'I have never stopped thinking about her'.'A brilliant, dazzling, daring novel' Boston Globe'A subtle and profoundly moving novel about friendship, romantic idealism and shame' O, The Oprah Magazine'An unflinching examination of justice, race and political idealism that brings to mind Philip Roth's American Pastoral and the tenacious intelligence of Nadine Gordimer' New York Times
Shirley Hazzard: A Writing Life
by Brigitta OlubasThe authorised biography of Shirley Hazzard, one of the greatest writers in the English language, author of The Transit of Venus and winner of the National Book Award'Hazzard's marvellous, luminous writing I discovered only recently; now I don't know how I ever managed to get along without it' Sarah Waters Born and raised in Sydney Australia, Hazzard lived around the world: in Hong Kong; Wellington, New Zealand; New York; Naples and Capri and her writing -- cosmopolitan, richly intelligent, beautiful, questing -- reflects her life. Her body of work is small but the acclaim it attracts is immeasurable, from among others, Michael Cunningham, Zoe Heller, Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, Lauren Goff, Hermione Lee, Joan Didion, Richard Ford, Colm Toibin. At sixteen, she was living in Hong Kong with her family and working for the British Combined Services. She later worked, another desk job, for the United Nations in New York and, briefly, in Naples. Italy -- Capri and Naples -- claimed her heart and after she was married -- she was introduced to the biographer, Francis Steegmuller by Muriel Spark -- they divided their time between Italy and America. Drawing on diaries, letters, interviews alongside a close reading of Hazzard's fiction -- Brigitta Olubas, herself Australian -- tells the story of a girl from the suburbs 'with a head full of poetry' who fell early under the spell of words and sought out first books and then people who loved books as her companions. In the process she transformed and indeed created her life. She became a woman of the world who felt injustice keenly, a deep and original thinker, who wrote some of the most beautiful fiction about love and longing, always with an eye to the ways we reveal ourselves to another. This, the definitive biography uncovers the truths and myths and about Shirley Hazzard's life and work, which come together at the point, as Brigitta Olubas observes: 'where the writer lives'.
This Hostel Life
by Melatu Uche OkorieSHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS SUNDAY INDEPENDENT NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR'A landmark book by an important new voice in Irish writing' EMILIE PINETHIS HOSTEL LIFE tells the stories of migrant women in a hidden Ireland.Queuing for basic supplies in an Irish direct provision hostel, a group of women squabble and mistrust each other, learning what they can of the world from conversations about reality television and Shakespeare. In another story, a student shares her work with a class only to be critiqued about her own lived experience, and a mother of young twins, living in Nigeria, is at risk of losing her newborns to ancient superstitious beliefs.An essay by Liam Thornton (UCD School of Law) is also included, explaining the Irish legal position in relation to asylum seekers and direct provision.'Fresh, devastating stories . . . Okorie writes with uncomfortable clarity about things we think we already know' LIA MILLS 'Melatu Uche Okorie has important things to say - and she does it quite brilliantly' RODDY DOYLE
This Hostel Life
by Melatu Uche OkorieSHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARDS SUNDAY INDEPENDENT NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR'A landmark book by an important new voice in Irish writing' EMILIE PINETHIS HOSTEL LIFE tells the stories of migrant women in a hidden Ireland.Queuing for basic supplies in an Irish direct provision hostel, a group of women squabble and mistrust each other, learning what they can of the world from conversations about reality television and Shakespeare. In another story, a student shares her work with a class only to be critiqued about her own lived experience, and a mother of young twins, living in Nigeria, is at risk of losing her newborns to ancient superstitious beliefs.An essay by Liam Thornton (UCD School of Law) is also included, explaining the Irish legal position in relation to asylum seekers and direct provision.'Fresh, devastating stories . . . Okorie writes with uncomfortable clarity about things we think we already know' LIA MILLS 'Melatu Uche Okorie has important things to say - and she does it quite brilliantly' RODDY DOYLE
The Veiled Kingdom
by Carmen Bin LadinOn September 11th 2001, Carmen Bin Ladin heard the news on the radio that the Twin Towers had been struck. She instinctively knew that her brother-in-law's name would be linked to these horrifying acts of terrorism, and her heart went out to the victims in America. She also knew that her life and the lives of her family would never be the same again. In 1974 Carmen, half Swiss and half Persian, married Yeslam Bin Ladin and found herself inside the complex and vast clan of Bin Laden, part of a society that at that point she neither knew nor understood. Carmen Bin Ladin's story takes us inside one of the most powerful, secretive and repressive kingdoms in the world.
The Street (Virago Modern Classics #788)
by Ann PetryWith a new introduction by TAYARI JONES, author of An American Marriage'This is a wonderful novel - the prose is clear, the plot is page-turning, the characters are utterly believable' CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE'Ann Petry's first novel, The Street, was a literary event in 1946, praised and translated around the world - the first book by a black woman to sell more than a million copies . . . Her work endures not merely because of the strength of its message but its artistry' NEW YORK TIMES'My favorite type of novel, literary with an astonishing plot . . . insightful, prescient and unputdownable' TAYARI JONESNew York City, 1940s. In a crumbling tenement in Harlem, Lutie Johnson is determined to build a new life for herself and her eight-year-old boy, Bub - a life that she can be proud of. Having left her unreliable husband, Lutie believes that with hard work and resolve, she can begin again; she has faith in the American dream. But in her struggle to earn money and raise her son amid the violence, poverty and racial dissonance of her surroundings, Lutie is soon trapped: she is a woman alone, 'too good-looking to be decent', with predators at every turn.
The Collected Stories of Shirley Hazzard
by Shirley HazzardCollected Stories includes both volumes of National Book Award-winning author Shirley Hazzard's short story collections - Cliffs of Fall and People in Glass Houses - alongside uncollected works and two previously unpublished stories. Twenty-eight works of short fiction in all, Shirley Hazzard's Collected Stories is a work of staggering breadth and talent. Taken together, Hazzard's short stories are masterworks in telescoping focus, 'at once surgical and symphonic' (New Yorker), ranging from quotidian struggles between beauty and pragmatism to satirical sendups of international bureaucracy, from the Italian countryside to suburban Connecticut. In an interview, Hazzard once said, 'The idea that somebody has expressed something, in a supreme way, that it can be expressed; this is, I think, an enormous feature of literature'. Her stories themselves are a supreme evocation of writing at its very best: probing, uncompromising and deeply felt.
Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close
by Aminatou Sow Ann FriedmanAn inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of friendship, from the hosts of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend'Deeply compelling' ROXANE GAY A New York Times bestsellerA close friendship is one of the most important relationships a human life can contain. But most people don't talk about what it takes to stay close for the long haul.Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their messy and life-affirming Big Friendship in this honest and hilarious book. Through interviews with friends and experts, they also come to understand that their struggles are not unique. This book is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity, to actively choose them and sometimes, fight for them. 'A deeply funny and immensely heartfelt look into what makes a friendship last despite time, distance, trials and major life changes' ELLE'An inspiration' ARIEL LEVY 'Wonderful' HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON'Thoughtful and highly readable' New York Times
Sankofa: 'A fantastic novel about a woman's search for her identity' SEFI ATTA
by Chibundu OnuzoA funny, gripping and surprising story of a mixed-race British woman who goes in search of the West African father she never knew, by award-winning author Chibundu Onuzo.'A fantastic novel about a woman's search for her personal, familial and national identity' SEFI ATTA'Utterly compelling' STYLISTAnna grew up in England with her white mother and knowing very little about her West African father. In middle age, after separating from her husband and with her daughter all grown up, she finds herself alone and wondering who she really is. Her mother's death leads her to find her father's student diaries, chronicling his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. She discovers that he eventually became the president - some would say the dictator - of Bamana in West Africa. And he is still alive. She decides to track him down and so begins a funny, painful, fascinating journey, and an exploration of race, identity and what we pass on to our children.'Slick pacing and unpredictable developments keep the reader alert right up to the novel's exhilarating ending' GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE DAY'Wonderful. Poignant and powerful and so timely and the beautiful ending had me in tears, reminding me to look within as well as without for my answers' STELLA DUFFY'A hugely compelling novel about identity and the stories we tell about ourselves' ANNA JAMES'A disarmingly moving, surprisingly hilarious and fascinating journey' STYLIST
The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: A Foundling's Story
by Justine CowanA gripping memoir and revelatory investigation into the history of the Foundling Hospital and one girl who grew up in its care - the author's own mother.'Extraordinary ... A fascinating, moving book: part history of the Foundling Hospital and the development of child psychology, part Cowan's own story, and part that of Cowan's mother' LUCY SCHOLES, TELEGRAPH Growing up in a wealthy enclave outside San Francisco, Justine Cowan's life seems idyllic. But her mother's unpredictable temper drives Justine from home the moment she is old enough to escape. It is only after her mother dies that she finds herself pulling at the threads of a story half-told - her mother's upbringing in London's Foundling Hospital. Haunted by this secret history, Justine travels across the sea and deep into the past to discover the girl her mother once was.Here, with the vividness of a true storyteller, she pieces together her mother's childhood alongside the history of the Foundling Hospital: from its idealistic beginnings in the eighteenth century, how it influenced some of England's greatest creative minds - from Handel to Dickens, its shocking approach to childcare and how it survived the Blitz only to close after the Second World War.This was the environment that shaped a young girl then known as Dorothy Soames, who was left behind by a mother forced by stigma and shame to give up her child; who withstood years of physical and emotional abuse, dreaming ofescape as German bombers circled the skies, unaware all along that her own mother was fighting to get her back.'As a social history of the Foundling Hospital, this is a fascinating read' SUNDAY TIMES'Page-turning and profoundly moving' VIRGINIA NICHOLSON'A gripping true story' Christina Baker Kline, bestselling author of ORPHAN TRAIN'Breathtaking' Adrienne Brodeur, bestselling author of WILD GAME